Captured
by MagicPigPerson
Summary: Of course Daniel was going to get caught the minute he stepped outside. Of course he was screwed. But does that mean it's over? Of course not! (Set post NYSM 1, before Henley left. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated!)
1. The White(?) Van

J. Daniel Atlas looked up from the phone screen, and immediately knew what he was in for. If a whole career acting as a modern-day Robin Hood had taught him anything, it was how to spot Trouble. And Trouble was certainly here, walking towards him wearing all black and carrying a pistol, trained straight at his forehead.

"You should know how this works by now," said the aggressor in a gruff voice, "You do any of that magic rubbish, and this bullet goes straight through your skull."

Daniel bit back the perfect retort he had planned as he spotted four more people approaching him with similar weapons. He went to tuck his cell phone safely away in the inside of his jacket, but one of the kidnappers proclaimed "I'll take that, thanks!" and wrestled it out of Daniel's grip. Against his will but already devising a plan, he lifted his hands above his head and let himself be guided at gunpoint to an unmarked white van (well, at lease Daniel _thought_ it was white, it was hard to tell with the hasty black layer of paint covering the whole thing) and steered into the back, where he was handcuffed to the floor. He took in his surroundings. Darkness, a bit of darkness over there, some more darkness just to make sure, and darkness concealing the captors faces. It was only when this thought crossed his mind that he realized that one of them was speaking.

"- otherwise the Boss won't like it." He could sense the capital letter in the word.

Arguments broke out, but Daniel spoke over them.

"Who is this 'Boss' character that you mentioned?"

The captor that told him not to do any magic stopped talking, along with all the others, though it was he who answered.

"Well then," he answered, and Daniel could imagine the smirk on his face, even if he couldn't see it. "You know how to listen and butt your head in. Just like your little friend here."

Daniel heard a dull _thud_ and a less dull "Ow!" coming from the darkness. But that exclamation had sounded oddly familiar – no… surely…?

"Jack?"

"Hey man," Yep, it was definitely him. A little shaken, but still the same _Hey man_ that he knew all too well from their heists together.

Daniel was now utterly confused, though he tried to hide it. "Okay, I want answers."

Laughter broke out between the captors. "Good luck with that!" One of them even added a little extra cackle that made it sound like he would be more at home in a mental asylum, but that wasn't what worried him.

What worried him was the deep voice announcing "Do it. Now,".

What worried him was the laughter ceasing to exist effective immediately.

What worried him was the captor that now stood over him, in plain sight, pulling some deadly-looking brass knuckles over his hands.

"Say goodnight…" came the voice.

One punch… two, and all the stars that Daniel had seen warped, danced, but then quickly spiraled into black to match the rest of his surroundings, and his body fell to the floor.


	2. In the Apartment

Okay, so I know these are super-short, but I have such a fun time writing them. I can only hope that you enjoy reading them as well :)

"Do you think they'll be okay?"

Nobody usually interrupted Merritt when the latest episode of _Mythbusters_ was on the television. They all knew it was unwise to talk when something or other was being blown up for 'science', so they usually just let him be with the replays and the graph data that only Merritt could understand. Now, however, Henley was getting desperate. Merritt rolled over on the couch, and was about to tell Henley off for interrupting when the TV was telling it's one viewer what type of gas they used to make the explosion bigger, but he stopped at the sign of her face. Henley had always been one to wear her heart on her shoulders with pride, so it didn't take a mentalist to know that she was worried about the other two horsemen. Merritt sighed.

"Jack's only gone out to get the groceries, and for all we know Daniel's digging a hole to China. I'm sure they're fine."

"Merritt, they've been gone for _four hours_."

There was too much truth in this to ignore. Reluctantly, Merritt hit the 'Pause' button on the remote and looked Henley in the eye.

"To be fair, I've only known the queue down at that store to last no longer that 10 minutes. Maybe they found a 20 dollar note on the ground without telling us, and are just treating themselves to a cheeky drink without us?" Even as the words came out of his own mouth, Merritt had to admit it sounded stupid.

"You've been observing Danny for years. Do you really think he'd be the kind to _treat himself to a cheeky drink_?"

"Well… not exactly…"

"Oh, come on. You just can't be bothered to get your ass off the seat and go look for them!"

Again, too much truth to ignore. But that didn't take away the sting by a long shot. Henley must have realized, because when she next spoke, it was in a softer tone.

"Look, Merritt. I'm worried. Just… just please come out and look for them with me." It seemed to be taking every ounce of her willpower not to turn herself into a human hosepipe.

Merritt knew this was game. There was zero chance he could say no, not with her on the brink of a mental breakdown.

"I'll come, but if we find out they're fine, I have your permission to scream _I told you so_ through a megaphone before returning to the destruction of public toilets."

 _So that's why he watches it_ , thought Henley, _He's in it for the obliteration of public toilets_.

Henley nodded.

"Right," said Merritt, sitting up and adjusting his hat, "We have some Horsemen to find."


	3. The Room

Daniel blinked himself slowly back to consciousness. He had awoken to find himself completely stripped of possessions, apart from the clothes on his back. He was laying with his back against a cold, steel wall. The room was dimly lit by a lone light bulb flickering dimly in the center of the room. Apart from that, the only other thing in the room was a chair. It was unoccupied due to the fact that Jack was pacing around the perimeter of the room, taking care to swerve when he came near Daniel. Now, however, Jack stepped in front of him. Daniel was taken aback by how adult-like Jack was acting, and everyone knew how hard it was to surprise Daniel. He was so stunned that he forgot where he was and what had happened. But then, as if his mind was going in fast-forward, he remembered everything. Looking for Jack, getting cornered, the van, the voice, the knuckles, the pain. Oh, the pain. Jesus, it hurt badly.

Daniel just had enough energy to mutter, "How long have we been out?"

Jack replied with a solemn "no idea."

Perfect, just what they both needed right now. To have no track of time whatsoever. And to make matters worse, they were fully at the mercy of whoever these kidnappers' boss was. "Any idea where we are?"

"I don't remember anything after being knocked out. One of us screamed, at some point," Jack's voice reduced to a murmur, "might have been me…"

"Insignificant." Daniel was gradually turning back into his normal self, and Jack was slightly relieved that Daniel found his show of weakness to pain unimportant. More than slightly, actually. Closer to very relieved. Until Daniel spoke up again and stood straight, glancing around the room: "where's the _door_?"

It seemed Daniel had a point. There was no sign of an entrance – or more importantly, an exit – anywhere. It looked like they were locked in, and probably being monitored, from what Daniel's instinct was telling him.

Daniel looked down at his hands and realised he was squeezing them tightly, stopping the blood flow and turning his skin a violent shade of blue. He stopped immediately and shook them, trying to regain the feeling in both, but they hung limply at his sides like balloons that had just been deflated. Defeated. Like what he was feeling now.

Jack slid down the wall and said hopelessly, "what are we meant to do now? I'm stumped."

"Join the club" was Daniel's response. Despite the fact that he was never really one for negativity during an escape situation, this one did seem impossible. Even magicians couldn't escape a bare room with no door and nothing to their disposal but their pants. They couldn't teleport, for Christ's sake, although both Daniel and Jack found themselves wishing they could.

A dull grinding noise, like metal on metal, filled the room. Both men winced, it was worse than listening to fingernails being scraped on a chalkboard. Small vents were being opened on the sides of the room.

 _Those aren't vents_ , Daniel realised with a jolt, _those are pipes_.

But it was already too late to say anything. Grey gas was pouring into the room, filling up all spaces where any oxygen might have been, leaving no square inch unoccupied.

Daniel felt himself, yet again, going light headed, and this time he passed out before he even hit the floor.

He awoke what he judged to be a few hours later, his head throbbing, his vision blurry and a searing pain in his left knee. It took him a while to realise what the before and after was.

Before, there was Jack. Now, there was only Daniel.

He looked all around the room – which caused shooting pains to run through his skull, but he didn't care – to make sure he wasn't deceiving himself. Even though he knew it would be in vain, he still cried out "Jack? Jack!" His voice was slurred, his mouth dry. Daniel started to panic about what had happened to the Horsemen when his questions were answered.

By Jack's cry of tortured pain in the distance.


	4. The Factory

The streetlights shone down on them; as usual, they were doing a rubbish job of penetrating the darkness on the street. They just turned into a nuisance every time you came close to walking into one. This was why the duo of magicians-turned-detectives had brought their own flashlights.

"Remind me why we're here again." Merritt wasn't too happy that he was losing sleep over the other Horsemen. Having Henley worried about them was bad enough, in his books.

"Because the other are in trouble – we have to help. That's what we do." Henley, on the other hand, still sounded desperate.

"Well, yeah. That much was obvious. But why did Dylan say to try _here_ , of all places?" A couple of hours before, they had phoned Dylan for help, to find that he was expecting the disappearances. According to The Eye, an anti-magician association had been keeping tabs on the Horsemen, and the abandoned factory Merritt and Henley were heading towards was a base of sorts – or part of it anyway – the rest was underground.

"I don't know, Merritt. But I trust Dylan."

The mentalist found himself simultaneously raising an eyebrow and shaking his head at the absurdity of their situation. He choose to comment on the latter, "First stage shows, then carousels, and now this." He sighed. "This career path's going to be the death of me, or the reason I lose my sanity – whichever comes first."

Henley made the smart decision not to reply. She thought it would be smarter to keep her mouth shut so as to keep Merritt from jumping down her throat.

The factory loomed above them, looking eerie and threatening in the pale moonlight. Back in the early 2000's, it had been one of many that made electronic parts for robots, to be shipped to larger companies. Even now, as the pair approached the entrance, random cogs, wires, nails and other parts were strewn around haphazardly across the ground, rust creeping around the shiny metal that once shone in the light like diamonds.

They reached the door, which was surprisingly small for the vastness of the factory. Henley advanced towards it with caution; for all they knew it was rigged to explode if someone touched it. Luckily for them, it wasn't, and Henley pushed down hard on the door handle and attempted to push it… pull it…

"Door's locked." She said with a tone of disappointment in her voice as she backed away. "But there has to be another way in." Henley shone the beam of her flashlight around the walls of the factory, but when she was unsuccessful, she tried the floor (accompanied my Merritt, this time). Many rats scattered and fly buzzed away when the light reached them. After what they judged to be a quarter of an hour, Henley lost her footing on another piece of metal sticking out of the ground, to only be saved by the wall on her other side. She was about to bypass it, consider it another scrap which was littered around the factory, when she realised that it had the unmistakable shape of a handle. A trapdoor was sitting out the back of the factory, just waiting – _begging_ , even – to be discovered.

Henley called Merritt over in excitement, and the combined strength of the two magicians was enough to force the trapdoor open. It was pitch black down there, and as they shone their lights down there, the beams were almost instantaneously swallowed by the darkness. They only revealed what looked to be a metal ladder, calling them downwards. Merritt looked over at Henley, motioned with his head to the abyss and asked, "so, ladies first, or men just before?"

Henley gave a warm smile and pushed Merritt gently towards the hole, saying, "go on, lady."

Merritt gave a smirk (which he usually reserved especially for sarcastic comments) and climbed into the hole, closely followed by Henley. She shut the trapdoor behind them, erasing any evidence that they had been there.

The Earth had swallowed them whole, and now they had to face whatever demons lie in it's dungeon.

 **A/N: Phew. That took some time. But, thinking about it, that may be because I've devoted practically _all_ of my spare time to coding on Unity. So if I'm not updating for a while, I'm not dead, I'm just being a nerd and hoping it'll be worth my time. Expect to see more on my HG fanfic, because I'll be writing that on the bus before/after school now, which will give me an hour each day to write that one (I keep my fanfic's on two separate computers, I'm so smart I know). Happy reading! **

**~MPP**


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